I'm a lifelong drinker of black tea and always use loose leaf tea. Since I drink tea at least 8 times a day, I felt I should make the switch to organic teas. My favorite Earl Grey was not organic, and no local stores carrying organic black teas had any loose leaf teas. So I went online and have been sampling. In side-by-side comparisons with other organic Earl Greys as well as my long-standing (non-organic) favorite, the Art of Tea organic Earl Grey was vastly superior. The floral aroma is that of citrus blossoms, bold but not in that unpleasant perfume-like way. The flavor of bergamot (real oil of bergamot) and the flavor of the tea are in perfect balance. So I ordered a pound of it, and it is my new favorite. Though I gave it a "reasonably priced" value rating, I should add that it is one of the most expensive teas I've purchased. If it were Fair Trade Certified, I would have given it a perfect total score.

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Alex Zorach wrote: on December 9th, 2016

Hello and (a rather late) welcome to RateTea and thank you for your first review!

I do think it's good to watch the quality of what you drink if you drink a lot of tea. Keep in mind though, it's not just the organic-certified stuff that is produced without synthetic chemicals. Traditionally, all tea was made this way, and some countries (Turkey is one) have national regulations banning such chemicals, so their teas are organic even though none of them are certified as such (their teas tend to be pretty inexpensive).


That's exciting that you are interested in sampling different black teas. If you want recommendations, I have tried quite a few certified organic black teas that I liked very much. One of my recent favorites was the Organic Assam from Harney & Sons. I've also had good organic-certified Darjeeling sold by Golden Tips Tea, an Indian company. I've also had some inexpensive organic black teas from Upton Tea Imports.

One of the most sustainable tea gardens in the world is Makaibari estate, located in Darjeeling. I also love their teas. You can buy them through a number of different companies, I recommend looking into them.

I have yet to try anything sold by Art of Tea, but they look interesting, there are a lot of their teas that I would like to try.

Let me know if you have any questions about tea or about our website! Apologies for taking so long to comment on your first review!

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